Exercise mat

ABSTRACT

Embodiments of the present invention provide an exercise or yoga mat either in one layer or multi layer configuration. According to an embodiment, the exercise mat includes a base layer having a pair of opposed flat surfaces, a pair of horizontal sides, and a pair of vertical sides, a plurality of structures protruding upward from an upper surface of the pair of opposed flat surfaces, the plurality of structures are of a predefined shape and extends up to a predefined height and are distributed throughout the upper surface of the pair of opposed flat surfaces in essentially uninterrupted fashion in order to provide a grip and a stimulating effect to hands and feet to a user exercising on the exercise mat, and a plurality of recesses positioned opposite to the positions of the plurality of structures and underside onto a bottom surface of the pair of opposed flat surface.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/312,084, filed Mar. 23, 2016, titled “Exercise Mat”, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure relates to the field of mats. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an exercise or a yoga mat with improved configurations for practicing yoga or similar forms of exercise.

BACKGROUND

In today's scenario, with the change of the society type, modern people have more stress and less time to exercise, and therefore the indoor fitness exercise has been widely accepted by the people. Yoga is one of popular practice for many people and is practiced by millions of people worldwide. Yoga comes in many forms and the most popular forms of yoga include movements through a series of postures. The yoga postures require physical exertion by the user practicing yoga. The users practicing yoga usually use a mat while practicing various yoga postures.

Typical yoga or exercise mats normally used to practice yoga postures are of rubber or similar material with substantially a flat upper surface. Further because of the physical exertion by the users practicing yoga and the temperature of room where the yoga is practiced, a significant amount of sweating may occur for the users practicing yoga postures which may wet the mats. As a result such mats become slippery over time creating a lot of safety issues and causes discomfort to the users. Without a suitable grip to withstand wetness present over the surface, such mats may cause serious injury to the users practicing yoga.

There are certain yoga mats, which are designed with texturized upper surface but these textures or patterns over the surface of such mats are merely cosmetic and do not have any utility associated with them. The texturized design differences on the upper surface may be used to distinguish one mat over another, but the textures presented on the upper surface do not render any specific utility to the users practicing yoga postures.

Thus, there is a need for an improved exercise or yoga mat that would provide the users with suitable grip while performing various yoga postures and would alleviate drawbacks associated with conventional exercise mats.

BRIEF SUMMARY

According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an exercise or yoga mat (100) including a base layer (110) having a pair of opposed flat surfaces, a pair of horizontal sides, and a pair of vertical sides; a plurality of structures (104) protruding upward from an upper surface (102) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces, wherein each of the plurality of structures (104) are of a predefined shape and extends up to a predefined height and are distributed throughout the upper surface (102) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces in essentially uninterrupted fashion in order to provide a grip and a stimulating effect to hands and feet of a user exercising on the exercise mat (100); and a plurality of recesses (108) positioned opposite to the positions of the plurality of structures (104) and underside onto a bottom surface (106) of the pair of opposed flat surface.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an exercise mat (100) that includes a first layer (110) having a pair of opposed flat surfaces, a pair of horizontal sides, and a pair of vertical sides; a plurality of structures (104) protruding upward from an upper surface (102) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces, wherein each of the plurality of structures (104) are of a predefined shape and extends up to a predefined height and are distributed throughout the upper surface (102) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces in essentially uninterrupted fashion, to provide a grip and stimulating effect to hands and feet to a user exercising on the exercise mat; a plurality of recesses (108) positioned opposite to the positions of the plurality of structures (104) and underside onto a bottom surface (106) of the pair of opposed flat surface; and a second layer (112) essentially attached and laminated onto the bottom surface (106) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces.

These and other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the detailed description below, in light of the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

The novel features which are believed to be characteristic of the present disclosure, as to its structure, organization, use and method of operation, together with further objectives and advantages thereof, will be better understood from the following drawings in which a presently preferred embodiment of the invention will now be illustrated by way of example. It is expressly understood, however, that the drawings are for the purpose of illustration and description only and are not intended as a definition of the limits of the invention. Embodiments of this disclosure will now be described by way of example in association with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a top view of an exercise or yoga mat, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 illustrates a partial magnified top view of the exercise mat of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 illustrates a partial magnified bottom view of the exercise mat of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 illustrates one of horizontal side view of the exercise mat of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 illustrates one of vertical side view of the exercise mat of FIG. 1.

FIG. 6 illustrates a partial view of the exercise mat of FIG. 1, in accordance with another embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The exercise or yoga mat of the present disclosure will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings which should be regarded as merely illustrative without restricting the scope and ambit of the disclosure.

For the purpose of description, utilization of the mat of the present disclosure is described with reference to yoga. However, the use of the mat of the present disclosure is not limited to yoga and may be used for other kind of exercises. The term ‘yoga mat’, ‘yoga or exercise mat’ and ‘exercise mat’ can be used interchangeably in the present disclosure. The yoga mat of the present disclosure enables a yoga practitioner to perform yoga on a mat without risk of slippage due to perspiration. The yoga mat of the present disclosure provides higher grip to the yoga practitioner. Further, yoga mat of the present disclosure facilitates stimulation to palms of hands and soles of feet of the practitioner while performing yoga on the yoga mat. The yoga mat of the present disclosure is comfortable to use, light weight and easy to carry anywhere. Further, although a rectangular mat is shown in accompanying figures and a preferred embodiment, it should be noted that the mat may have other shapes, such as a square, circle, or oval, or any other shape without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 1 through FIG. 5, the yoga mat (100) for practicing yoga or other exercise includes a base layer (110). The base layer (110) includes a pair of opposed flat surfaces (102,106), namely an upper surface (102), and a bottom surface (106). The base layer (110) further includes a pair of horizontal sides, and a pair of vertical sides, as shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5, respectively. Although only one horizontal side and only one vertical side are shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5, it should be understood that corresponding opposite sides are identical in nature. The horizontal sides and the vertical sides define a width, and a length of the exercise mat (100). It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the width of the exercise mat (100) may be made shorter or equal to the length of the exercise mat (100) to fully support the user exercising on the exercise mat (100), although FIG. 1 shows the width of the exercise mat 100 to be shorter than the length of the exercise mat (100) as a preferred embodiment of the invention.

According to the embodiment, the base layer 110 may comprise of polyester knit coated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), but it should not be construed as limitation and any suitable materials, such as plastic, foam, ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) foam, woven fabrics or fibers, or any combination thereof may also be used. According to the embodiment, the thickness of the base layer (110) may range from 2 mm to 8 mm, however the scope of invention is not limited to the thickness provided and the thickness of the base layer can vary based on the requirement.

Referring to FIG. 1 through FIG. 5 again, specifically to FIG. 2, the base layer (110) is provided with a plurality of structures (104) protruding upward from the upper surface (102) of the base layer (110). According to the embodiment, the plurality of structures (104) are of a predefined shape and extends up to a predefined height and are distributed throughout the upper surface (102) of the base layer (110) in essentially uninterrupted fashion. According to an alternative embodiment, the plurality of structures 104 may be distributed only over specific sections on the upper surface (102) of the base layer (110). As shown in FIG. 2, each of the plurality of structures (104) is spaced-apart by a predetermined approximate distance from each other. The approximate distance between the structures (104) can vary based on the requirement for the grip by the user of the yoga mat (100) and also depending on the degree of stimulation to the palms of hands and soles of feet that need to be provided to the user of the yoga mat (100).

The structures (104) shown in the FIGS. 1-5 are rounded structures. However the scope of the present invention is not limited to the shape being rounded structures. The shapes of structures (104) may also include but not limited to squared structures, triangular structures, rectangular structures, and structures of suitable geometric or random shape or any combination thereof.

According to the embodiment of the present invention, each of the structures (104) has predefined dimensions in terms of height and area that it may cover over the upper surface (102) of the mat (100) or the base layer (110). According to the embodiment, the predefined height of the plurality of structures (104) should essentially be greater or equal to 1 mm to provide proper grip for the user practicing yoga postures or exercising, and to provide stimulating effect to hands and feet of the user exercising on the exercise mat (100). The presence of structures (104) over the upper surface (102) of the mat (100) minimizes slippage on the upper surface (102) essentially when the mat (100) is wet due to sweating of the user practicing yoga postures on the mat (100).

Referring to FIG. 1 through FIG. 5 again, the base layer (110) is further provided with a plurality of recesses (108) with each of the recesses (108) positioned just opposite and underside to the position of each of the plurality of structures (104) onto the bottom surface (106) of the base layer (110). According to the embodiment, the plurality of recesses (108) may be in square shape, as shown in FIG. 3, however the shape of the plurality of recesses (108) are not limited to square shape and any other shape may also be taken by the plurality of recesses (108). The plurality of recesses (108) are configured to frictionally engage the exercise mat (100) with the floor.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the mat (100) shown and described above in FIG. 1 through FIG. 5 may further include one or more additional flat layer (112) of a predefined thickness essentially attached or laminated onto the bottom surface (106) of the base layer (110), as shown in FIG. 6. Although, only one layer of the additional flat layer (112) is shown attached onto the bottom surface (106) of the base layer (110), it should be understood that one or more number of the layers (112) may be attached to onto the bottom surface (106) of the base layer (110) based on the desired thickness for the mat (100).

According to the same embodiment, the one or more additional layer (112) may comprise, but not limited to Latex, Rubber, Nitrile Butadiene Rubber (NBR), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), foam, Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) foam, fibers or any combination thereof. Further, according to the embodiment, each of the additional layer (112) may be a single one-piece layer attached onto the bottom surface (106) of the base layer 110 or each of the additional layer (112) may comprise of a set of sections attached onto the bottom surface 106 of the base layer 110.

Although particular embodiments of the invention have been described in detail for purposes of illustration, various modifications and enhancements may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. 

We claim:
 1. An exercise mat (100), comprising: a base layer (110) having a pair of opposed flat surfaces (102,106), a pair of horizontal sides, and a pair of vertical sides; a plurality of structures (104) protruding upward from an upper surface (102) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces, wherein each of the plurality of structures (104) are of a predefined shape and extends up to a predefined height and are distributed throughout the upper surface of the pair of opposed flat surfaces in essentially uninterrupted fashion in order to provide a grip and a stimulating effect to hands and feet of a user exercising on the exercise mat (100); and a plurality of recesses (108) positioned opposite to the positions of the plurality of structures (104) and underside onto a bottom surface (106) of the pair of opposed flat surface.
 2. The exercise mat (100) of claim 1, wherein the plurality of structures (104) with the predefined shape comprises of rounded structures, squared structures, triangular structures, rectangular structures, and structures of suitable geometric or random shape or any combination thereof.
 3. The exercise mat (100) of claim 1, wherein the predefined height of the plurality of structures (104) is greater or equal to 1 mm.
 4. The exercise mat (100) of claim 1, wherein the plurality of structures (104) are spaced-apart by a predetermined approximate distance from each other.
 5. The exercise mat (100) of claim 1, wherein plurality of recesses (108) are configured to frictionally engage the exercise mat (100) with the floor.
 6. The exercise mat (100) of claim 1, wherein the pair of horizontal sides and the pair of vertical sides define a width, and a length of the exercise mat (100), respectively.
 7. The exercise mat(100) of claim 6, wherein the width of the exercise mat (100) is shorter or equal to the length of the exercise mat (100) to fully support the user exercising on the exercise mat (100).
 8. The exercise mat (100) of claim 1, wherein the base layer (110) comprises polyester knit coated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), plastic, foam, ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) foam, woven fabrics or fibers, or any combination thereof.
 9. The exercise mat (100) of claim 1 further comprising an additional flat layer (112) essentially attached and laminated onto the bottom surface (106) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces.
 10. The exercise mat (100) of claim 9, wherein the additional layer (112) comprises Latex, Rubber, Nitrile Butadiene Rubber (NBR), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), foam, Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) foam, fibers or any combination thereof.
 11. The exercise mat (100) of claim 9, wherein the additional layer (102) may be at least one of: one-piece layer, or a set of sections of layer.
 12. An exercise mat (100), comprising: a first layer (110) having a pair of opposed flat surfaces (102,106), a pair of horizontal sides, and a pair of vertical sides; a plurality of structures (104) protruding upward from an upper surface (102) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces, wherein each of the plurality of structures (104) are of a predefined shape and extends up to a predefined height and are distributed throughout the upper surface of the pair of opposed flat surfaces in essentially uninterrupted fashion in order to provide a grip and a stimulating effect to hands and feet of a user exercising on the exercise mat (100); a plurality of recesses (108) positioned opposite to the positions of the plurality of structures (104) and underside onto a bottom surface (106) of the pair of opposed flat surface; and a second layer (112) essentially attached and laminated onto the bottom surface (106) of the pair of opposed flat surfaces.
 13. The exercise mat (100) of claim 12, wherein the plurality of structures (104) with the predefined shape comprises of rounded structures, squared structures, triangular structures, rectangular structures, and structures of suitable geometric or random shape or any combination thereof.
 14. The exercise mat (100) of claim 12, wherein the predefined height of the plurality of structures (104) is greater or equal to 1 mm.
 15. The exercise mat (100) of claim 12, wherein the plurality of structures (104) are spaced-apart by a predetermined approximate distance from each other.
 16. The exercise mat (100) of claim 12, wherein the pair of horizontal sides and the pair of vertical sides define a width, and a length of the exercise mat (100), respectively.
 17. The exercise mat (100) of claim 12, wherein the first layer comprises polyester knit coated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), plastic, foam, ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) foam, woven fabrics or fibers, or any combination thereof.
 18. The exercise mat (100) of claim 12, wherein the second layer (112) comprises Latex, Rubber, Nitrile Butadiene Rubber (NBR), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), foam, ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) foam, fibers or any combination thereof.
 19. The exercise mat (100) of claim 12, wherein the second layer (112) may be at least one of: one-piece layer, or a set of sections of layer. 